Angel and Garrison

[x-firestar.livejournal.com]

Going over Angel's progress with the X-Men leads to something Angel hadn't expected to achieve for a long time.



Up in the room that overlooked the Danger Room, Angel sat cross legged in one of the control chairs. The main room itself was dark and quiet but her attention focused on one of the screens as she replayed a recent run through she'd been in. She watched it through carefully once and then hit the rewind button before making some notes on the pad of paper that rested haphazardly on her knee. She might not have access to run any scenarios but she had full ability to review her former ones if she wanted; she'd been through two others, which showed in the sprawling script on the paper.

It was studying but a different one than what she'd been doing for finals. Angel had been glad to do it at that point.

"You know, that's not really the right conclusion." The voice came from the darkness behind her, and she squeaked in surprised as she caught sight of Garrison Kane's head, leaning on his chin on the back of the chair. "The problem wasn't the power stunt not working. The two handed blast was off, but you had time with both of those targets if you'd flanked them. It was the one on your right that you had to roll and snapshot to kill which should have been the first target." He flipped a paperclipped handful of pages on the console. "Scott reviewed the run in the West Coast Annex. His breakdown and assessment is in there."

"Ooohh." Leaning over carefully so as not to send the papers on her lap tumbling to the floor, Angel grabbed for the ones that Garrison had tossed. As she started to flip through them, she asked, "Is that because he was the stronger of the two or because I had a better shot at getting him?" Until that particular moment, that scenario had been going well but she'd been tagged almost immediately after the scene he'd been talking about. "Or a combination of the two, maybe?"


"Tactical placement. The one to your right was coming in directly in line with your flight path, while the other two had to maneuver to get their weapons into play. If you'd hit the one right away, you would have been the one to determine the angle of approach they'd need to take to attack you. Instead, you got boxed into reacting to their approach instead, forcing much lower percentage blasts and requiring a power trick that you haven't entirely mastered." Kane's finger traced the long distance shots of the engagement. "If you let the enemy control the environment you're fighting in, you're at a big disadvantage, eh."

Angel replayed it one more time as she mulled over Kane's advice and then dropped her head back against the chair with a groan. "Oh my god, I totally see that now! Now, when I have all the bruises and stuff from not seeing it before!" She sighed and promptly scratched out the notes she'd made just prior and quickly rewrote the core part of what he'd pointed out to her. "One of these days this stuff'll be instinct," she muttered.

"That's the point of the training, Angel. Six months ago, you had trouble handling more than one drone at a time. Now, you took a bad position against three of them and still shot them out of the air. That's a pretty big difference, you know." Kane said, as he took a perch leaning against the console.

"I know," she said as she stopped writing. With a sigh that spoke more of too much time sitting in position than annoyance, she tossed the pad of paper to the floor and stretched out her legs. Angel looked up at Garrison when she was done. "It's just when I do things and realize that I did them wrong it's frustrating. But it's nice realizing I have come a long way." She grinned. "I feel like I know every inch of that Danger Room floor - we have been well introduced."

"Yeah, that part never stops. Once you get good at something, they make sure that you're facing something all new and painful." Garrison gave her a thoughtful look. "Where do you feel like you're at with your training?"

Angel blinked, taken aback. She hadn't been asked that question yet and she was quiet for a moment as she really thought about it. Blurting out an answer with Garrison, especially to that kind of question, was never really a wise move. "I think I'm pretty far along," she said slowly, drumming her fingers on her knee. "I'm certainly not where I could eventually be in a few years but I think I've made really good improvements over the last few months. I'm doing better in the Danger Room and I thought I did really well when we had to go to India." She frowned up at him. "I don't know where I measure up on some list but I'm really happy with what I'm doing right now."

"You'll be glad to hear that was Scott and Kurt's assessment of your training and post-mission reports. The Professor agrees." Garrison reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black case, tossing it to her easily underhand.

"Wha..." She caught it by instinct only as it felt like someone had removed any ability to feel right out of her body. Angel stared at Garrison, back to the box and then back again for a second before she focused on the box. Slowly she cracked it open and then immediately slammed it back shut as she burst into a wide blush. "Holy shit! Oh god, bad word! I owe myself ten dollars!"

"New rule. No more Red Bull after seven, eh."