Log: Laura/Garrison: The Danger Room Sessions

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It's training. Honest.



Well, it was his turn in the rotation. Ever since Garrison had agreed to the Professor's request to take over some of the Danger Room programming and training design, his self-defense classes had gone down to virtually nil. He was on the list as available when students requested it, but had rarely needed to drop in. Until Laura's request came through right as Logan cycled off, leaving her to Kane.

Still, there was some value to it. After all, he could test out his newest program, he considered. The 'ring' was a mosaic of coloured granite, floating in the midst of what looked like an airbrushed ideal of the galaxy. Nebulas and oort clouds flared and sparked impossibly around it, distracting anyone on the plane from the job at hand.

"You ready?" He said, slipping in a mouth guard before stepping towards the middle. Laura looked distracted, but not by the celestial lightshow. More fidgety; pent-up. Kane filed that away for later.

True to be told, Laura wasn't really into the sparring. She had tried to find ways to divert herself, and fighting was one, sure, but she had had...something else in mind. And hey, Garrison was cute...but really, he was like, old. Fixing her eyes on him -the whole galaxy theme was a little bothering too- she crouched a little, closing the distance. She was there already, so there was no point on making this a bad experience.

"You do realize this is ridiculously distracting, right? Half my brain is trying to bite a star just for the sake of seeing if it has a taste." She was going to try to distract him before doing her move. It might work. Hopefully.

"What, you mean that supernova is distracting?" Kane pointed, and as her eyes flickered for a fraction of a second, his foot lashed out in order to drive her back. He'd fought Laura before, and knew that keeping her off balance and using his advantage in strength worked best against her.

This was the kind of thing that made Laura think that Garrison could be very evil at times. Laura jumped backwards, evading the hit as she pretty much did a whole turn in the air, falling in a crouching position and using the crouch to launch herself at the man, aiming for a punch in the jaw. Which honestly, might hurt her, but she was the one with the healing factor. Where the man was strong, she was fast and flexible. It would have to do.

"You're not the Rocketeer." Kane pivoted, his hand sweeping Laura's fist away and helping her momentum to send her tumbling past him on the ring. As she hit, he noticed several of the stone panels flash blue for a moment and smiled. Ah, the rest of the surprises were coming on-line.

Laura hit the ground, and rolled to her feet. But she noticed the floor...shinning. "Okay, what was that? How many tricks you put in this ring thing?" She was going to circle him in a very wary way.

"Tricks? You think I'd stoop that low?" Kane said, just as the panel under Laura disappeared, leaving the void of the blackness of space below her right feet before she plummeted. "Well, now that you mentioned, yeah, I likely would."

Hadn't she reacted in time, it would have ended pretty badly -or as bad as it would end in the Danger Room, alright- but Laura managed to hop backwards, giving Garrison what could be considered her version of a Very Bad Eye. "Oh you", muttered as she tried to internalize the new rule into the match, and then charged towards him again, going from full speed to a sudden halt right in front of him, body twisting to the left on a cartwheel as she attempted to kick his face with her feet, landing on his side and going for a knee kick on his ribs. She didn't know what to expect though.

She was getting sneakier, that was for sure. He faded back from the cartwheel but turned into the knee, taking it against his already tensed abdomen and trading the blow for a vicious right cross that cracked her right cheekbone like glass. A open palmed left caught her in the ear, the pressure spiking like a nail. Finally, he shoved with his forearm, and his enhanced strength sent her skipping along the ring. He stepped forward, but noticed the red flash under his foot, and instead threw himself sideways as the panel erupted upwards as a stone pillar, now obstructing part of the ring.

"Kick was good, but you need to be careful about trading blows with me. That one should have been at my kidneys; immobilize me long enough to follow it up and get back out of range."

Laura was giving him a seriously pissed glare, unable to speak as the side of her face was healing. She almost, almost left a tear escape her eyes, but she suck up and waited until she could over her mouth again. The rest she could endure it. "That one hurt!", said in a, well...hurt tone. She rubbed a hand against her cheek before fully straightening for a moment. "Oh, I could have slowed you down a lot", said as she popped the claws on her hands, just to sheathe them again. "But I aren't strong enough to go and try to even bruise you." Unlike him, who pretty much broke her face with a punch.

"Don't you have like, a weak spot? Behind your ears? Tickles? Maybe if I start singing?" Just another minute and her face would be fully healed, if not still bruised and itchy. She didn't like that stone pillar one bit.

"Unless you've got a keg of Moosehead stashed under that tanktop, nope. No weak spots. Well, maybe Air Supply. Air Supply and Moosehead. That's it." Kane said. He wasn't worried about her claws. The rules of sparring forbid anything lethal, and only people with healing factors like Laura, Kyle, Logan and himself were allowed to really let loose physically. Plus, if she tried to spike him, he was confident he could snap them off and feed them to her. Laura was fast, feral quick, but his preternatural reflexes could keep up with her and unlike Logan, she didn't have decades of cunning and practice with them. "So, you going to stand around afraid of the floor or are you going to try and hit me with something other than your face?"

She looked down at her tank top, and then sighed. No sense on removing it to cause a distraction, really. He might even tell Logan, and she didn't want to have to explain to him why she was fighting topless...no, bad mental image, baaaad. "Hmph." Yeah, that was all he was getting from her at the moment. How very mature it was, she didn't care. Laura made a sprint towards Garrison, but seemed to change her mind at the last moment and leaped for the stone pillar, claws unsheathing as she used them to quickly climb her way up, suddenly detaching herself and jumping towards Garrison, with all the intention to land a kick on whatever she hit first on the man. And she was ready to dodge this time.

"Better." Was all Garrison said. The flying kick just missed him, but she'd come at him from an unexpected quarter and the two follow-up strikes landed cleanly. She was definitely improving under Logan's tutelage. Still, the point of the Danger Room was to remind people just how much they had to learn. Kane jumped back and as Laura closed, deliberately stomped on the panel in front of him. It flashed red, and the pillar shot up just as Laura reached it, propelling her high into the artificial cosmos.

"OhmyGod fight like a man!", was all that Laura could say as she spun in the air, managing to land on her feet, and rolling to the side when the floor vanished. Great, thought as she stood once more. "Huh, if that's how you want to play..." Without adding another word, Laura stomped on the panel in front of her, and the one next to her, and another one, and another one, moving and dodging whatever faded or sprout from them as she made a beeline towards Garrison.

"Nah. This is more fun." With a leap, he vaulted into the air, impossibly high. With a twist, he landed feet first at the top of one of the pillars, staring down at her. He wondered how she'd react, considering that the program offered several different ways to approach getting to him.

Claws popped out again. "Oh, thank God I don't have steel claws like Pops", said as she started to climb the pillar, just to jump t a nearby one, slowly going up as she kept circling him, climbing her way up while keeping an eye on him. Sneaking out on him seemed to be the only way, apparently.

Kane stood almost casually, whistling lightly as she came up. The panel was only two feet square, and that was barely enough room for him. How she planned to knock him off would prove interesting. He followed her progression up, nodding encouragingly as she got closer.

Laura ended up in a pillar to the left of him, crouching pretty much like a cat. Okay, what now? The panels that had sprouted up were enough for her to surround him, but he could just rotate and stop her. So maybe she couldn't beat the man without her claws. Laura jumped to another pillar, closer to Garrison, and then to another, at the same distance, but behind him. And then another one to his right, this one also closer, to suddenly jump towards him...but her jump wasn't as strong as it should be, ending with her plunging her hand claws on the pillar, about a feet under Garrison, her body swinging as she kicked him on the back of his legs. She might or might not be grinning a lot.

The kick buckled his knees, and pitched him over the side. But Laura's moment of triumph was cut short as Kane grabbed her around the ankle as he fell. The grip jerked her across the top, and then lurched violently as her claws held, forcing her legs to crash into the side of the pillar and leaving her stretched out on top of the panel, back arched painfully.

Okay, that? Hurt. A lot. Laura's claws retracted as the pain shot down -and up- her back, allowing her to curl on herself, just to appear again, digging into the base of the pillar, securing her from falling. She had extra weight though. "Let....go!" She tried to kick the man's hand with her free leg before the pulling made her fall too. "I think we have had enough, alright?"

"Giving up already?" Kane braced against the pillar for a second and kicked out. As he came back in, he lashed out with his feet, shattering the stone. Both he and Laura hurtled towards the ground as he finally let go of her foot amidst the falling rock. With a tuck, he rolled as he hit, shedding momentum and only taking a few bruises.

Claws on, Laura used a pillar to slow down as she fell, so when she reached the floor there was little to no momentum to worry about. "Yeah yeah, I can't keep up with you, whatever." She was tired, pained and seriously angry at the man, but she didn't want to take a beating. "We should totally do something safer next time, like fighting with katanas over a shark pool."

"Swords are Logan's thing, not mine." Kane said. "The point is that you're getting better, but you're still focused on trying to out-physical me. Which, no offense, even with the feral thing and the healing factor, I'm still faster and stronger. You did better when you started to use the environment against me, eh. When you can't fight toe to toe with someone and hope to win, you need to use your environment to neutralize my advantages and maximize your own."

"Of course, but never mentioned the whole ring was rigged." It was an useless complaint, but she wasn't going to get tired of it. "Anyway, I wouldn't fight you with my fists alone, so you obviously had the upper hand here." And she was not a sore loser.

"The ring reacted for you the same way it did for me. You won't get to choose the environment a fight happens, Laura. Or the conditions in which you have to fight it. For example, if I was a Brotherhood plant, carefully concealed and trained to ingratiate myself into the mansion, and for some reason decided to tell you about it following a Danger Room session- well, you wouldn't have anything more than your fists to stop me, would you?"

Laura's claws popped out. All of them. "I was being literal, jeez. And I can check your heartbeat anytime I want, so don't try to scare me with that sort of thing", added as she sheathed them again. "Also? You would be a terrible spy." She stuck her tongue out, and turned away before the man decided they weren't over yet.

"Agreed. I'm entirely too pretty to be a double agent."