Log: Cammie & Laurie

[x-wallflower-.livejournal.com]

Cammie helps Laurie with a powers experiment, with some surprising results.




Laurie wrote a note down in her journal, dating it and noting the time next to it in neat cursive before looking at Cammie. She would show her notes to Hank later on, and get his opinion on the work they were doing, plus any suggestions he might have on what to do next.

"What would you like to try next?" she asked, rolling her shoulders and sitting up straigher.

It was interesting work, trying out different things with her powers, and while she was constantly practicing, doing controlled tests was slightly different to X-men or even personal powers training.

"I don't know. I mean, I'm not feeling much of anything. Maybe try hungry?" Cammie offered. She didn't mind being a guinea pig, she supposed it kept her out of trouble. Besides, it was interesting in a way. "Hit me as hard as you can."

"Hungry it is," Laurie replied, putting her pen down and concentrating her thoughts on hunger. Since she wasn't touching Cammie directly, it would take time for the room to fill with pheromones. "You should feel something in a little bit."

Cammie waited for a moment, shifting the weight of her feet back and forth. She didn't feel hungry, not even a bit. Or thirsty, really. Which was odd as when she agreed to do this she was fighting a craving for engine sludge.

She knew she should have saved some from the train engine. But right now not even that was appealing.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a little stomach rumbling. Are you sure this works?"

Laurie frowned slightly, and wrote a few notes before turning to a laptop she had set up beside her and tapping in some commands. According to the environmental controls listed on her laptop display she was definitely outputting pheromones, so it wasn't that they weren't there but something else.

"What do you feel at the moment?" she asked.

"Uh..." Cammie thought about it, "Nothing really. Not hungry at all." Or more to the point like she had gorged herself on something.

"Hmm." Laurie hummed noncommittally, taking a few more notes. "Alright then, we'll try something a little more obvious. I'm going to try and put you to sleep."

Laurie suited words to action, switching the pheromones she was outputting. It would take a few moments for the previous pheromones to clear from the air, but the new batch should help that. Her powers didn't last all that long outside her body without a continuing supply of new pheromone.

Cammie sat by and waited. And the more she waited, the more awake she felt, in a way that reminded her of her early teenage years when caffeine still did something and she could pull an all nighter because of a case of kick soda.

"You said sleep.... right? Because given I was up until like three watching - and laughing at - bad porn I'm extremely awake right now."

"And you said you didn't feel hungry at all earlier?" Laurie questioned, making a few more notes and wondering if what she was starting to suspect was a reasonable hypothesis. She'd need to show all this to Hank and get his professional opinion.

"Nope," Cammie said, "Not in the slightest. I had a big breakfast though. You don't want to hear what I had."

"Hmm, alright," Laurie replied, frowning again. She needed a way to test her hypothesis, sleep and hunger had manifested a completely different reaction then she'd been expecting. She needed something more obvious though, and it came to her suddenly what she could try. "I'm going to try and raise an aggressive attack response from you. If this is what I think it is, you system should reverse the outside influence. I think I'll move to the other side of the room, just in case though."

Laurie picked up her notebook and moved her chair as far from Cammie as possible. It should give her enough space to change tracks should Cammie actually attack her.

"Whatever," Cammie said, feeling relaxed, even more relaxed after Laurie left the room. Almost, scarily relaxed. "You can come back in, I'm not going to punch you."

"It's like I thought then," Laurie murmured distractedly, making more notes as she re-entered the room. "I don't know why yet, but I'm sure Hank will have some ideas."

"What's like you thought?" Cammie asked, looking lazily at the ceiling. Dude, it was totally a ceiling.

Laurie really shouldn't laugh, not when Cammie had agreed to helping her with this little experiment but the other girl just looked so stoned, "That my powers have an opposite effect on you then they would have on other people. But it doesn't seem to be the same reaction that insects and reptiles have to me though. I'm wondering if it has something to do with your body's ability to ingest poisons without harm."

"Huh," Cammie said, "That's pretty fucking crazy, isn't it?"

"Just a bit," Laurie admitted, pursing her lips slightly as she thought over the possibilities. "How much do you know about how your powers work? I mean, the underlying science that is?"

"Nope," Cammie returned, "Don't know, never really cared. I know all I need to." She could eat whatever she wanted, literally, and kill people.

"That's...," Laurie started, and then realised who she was talking to. Anybody else and she might have told them how incredibly irresponsible that sort of attitude was. This was Cammie however, a person who would probably take that statement as a compliment. "Well, don't you think it would be better to know if people other then I can shut you down? My powers may work weirdly on you but they still work. Being poisonous to touch isn't always going to get you out of scrapes."

"In that situation, kicking someone hard in the balls generally does the trick," Cammie returned.

"Do you trust me?" Laurie asked, suddenly thinking of something she could show Cammie that might at least change her mind enough to get her to be careful. "I'd like to show you what my powers could do to you now I know how they work. But I won't do it if you don't trust me not to go too far."

"Sure," Cammie said with a shrug, "Knock yourself out. I don't care."

The more Laurie had studied biology, the more she’d learnt to do with her powers but the simple things were still her strongest successes. Now that she knew that Cammie’s body somehow reversed the effects, all she needed to do was choose the one that seemed the closest to the opposite of the desired effect she wanted to create. Leaving off the more fatal choices, she fell on fear as possibly being the more debilitating. She had a feeling that Cammie wasn’t much used to the effects of a panic attack, or the effects such a thing had on her body.

She smiled reassuringly at the younger woman and stepped forward, placing her hands lightly on either side of Cammie’s face, her skin taking on a deep violet glow as she pushed her pheromones quickly to the surface of her skin. It would take a sharp burst to induce a proper panic attack, airborne wasn’t going to cut it for this and direct skin to skin contact had always made her power stronger.

The pins and needles hit first. Cammie had emotions, but in general they never had an overly physical effect on her that you could label negative. She did feel fear, but never the all consuming physical side effects, the same with rage. Like there was always an underlying level of calm. Not to say she didn't remember what things like adrenaline rushes felt like, she did have vague memories from before her teenage years of what it felt like.

But memories always paled in comparison to the real thing. And she was just this side of freaking out. The other thing that happened with that she was trying her damnest to hold back. Laurie could thank Cammie's training with Logan for the fact that she wasn't gassed right now. Or that Cammie could bite back the first urge which was to punch the other girl and run like hell.

Of course, there was only so much Cammie could take, "Back. Off. Now," she managed through clenched teeth.

Laurie was surprised for the most part. Not that she thought her abilities were the only thing she needed anymore, that belief had gone a long time ago. But she was surprised Cammie was still in control after such a heavy dose, she was impressed, she had to admit.

She changed tactics, reversing the effects of her power, her gaze never leaving Cammie's as she backed away, the reversal should counteract the pheromones she'd already released into the room, and help Cammie get back to a more normal keel.

"That was with me not trying to kill you, or really harm you," she noted softly. "I know you're strong, and you probably know what your limits are, but knowing when to ask for help, or when you need to learn more isn't a bad thing."

"How about this: if you don't leave the room in two seconds you're going to die a very nasty death of inhalation or toxic fumes," Cammie said, hoping she was making her point. Laurie had all of Cammie's training with Logan to thank as to why she wasn't dead yet. And even feeling closer to normal, the involuntary release it had triggered was just barely being held back. Like holding in having to go to the bathroom, it was beyond uncomfortable.

"Nothing personal," she managed.

Not the time for this conversation, obviously. Laurie simply nodded and pressed the button on a remote control to start the extractor fans. They'd clean up any of the left over phermones, or any poisons Cammie involuntaryily released.

"We have the technology," she said with a smile, and then walked out, closing the door softly behind her.