Kyle and April | Sparring
Feb. 4th, 2022 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logs(backdated) Kyle and April do some sparring so he can get a feel for her abilities, talk about teams, and then have a jungle run in the DR.
April had responded positively when Kyle texted her about a spar to gauge her abilities, and made her way down to the gym to meet him. She was in the middle of warming up when the back of her neck prickled, and she looked up with a ready smile. "Hey, how have you been?"
"Eh, you know. Up to my nose in snow, but hey, I got a couple of substitute teaching days in, so cha-ching." Kyle made the universal gesture for cash money. "Money can purchase goods and... did you guys have The Simpsons in your 'verse?" He asked, as he wrapped tape around his hands. "Walk me through like, your previous fighty time history. Ima guess that like, you've had at least somebody teaching you how to throw a punch and not break your wrists, because Spider-Dad, but you know. Deets."
"Yeah, we had The Simpsons. Being here so far is more like.. hm, fun house mirrors? Everything is similar, but some of the details are just a bit off. Formal training is a few years of Krav Maga. After I got the basics down we focused more on making sure I knew how to pull back and keep it in average ranges to bruise or break, not murder. Dad's... real keen on not killing people unless it's a last resort." April finished her stretching, letting black form just over her hands as protection. "It's not as wet as it looks and provides better protection than just tape, if you want to poke at it," she offered, holding her hands out.
"I really really do want to poke it." Kyle said, with a grin. He tapped April's fist with a fingertip, and then carefully poked it with his extended claw. "Brain says sticky tar, finger says nope, just a little squishy. Bet that saves on parkour rash on the palms too, damn." He paused. "Haha. Parker rash. Sorry, you've probably gotten the Parkour - Parker joke before but I'm mad at myself that I didn't make that joke to the Spider-Man we know."
April laughed at the joke. "First time, actually. I can just see the long-suffering look on Dad's face though. Puns, our true weakness." She let her claws form, wiggling them at Kyle as he poked. "Now I think I know who Maya was referring to when she said she'd seen bigger claws."
"Seriously?" Kyle's head tilted sideways like a confused dog. "You swing around the city and walk up walls and nobody's made that joke. Shit. I feel a lot smarter than I am now." He slid his claws back in, and shook out his hand. "Yeah, they're a whole thing. Feet too." He wiggled his toes at April. "If I don't keep 'em trimmed down, I get stuck in carpets. It's funny as fuck. Okay, so Krav and basic safety stuff, which is a nice balance." He padded over to a set of gym mats. "I figure little sparring, maybe hit the agility course? We've got half a parkour course outside but, honestly, it's full of ice right now. Wiping out into snow is fun, wiping out into a sheet of ice sucks."
"Sounds good," April agreed easily as she followed him to the mats. "Extreme ice agility sounds like something they'd add to winter X-Games. Lace up your skates, hope you don't lose a finger or eye. I guess in your case, just something over the rest of the feet so you don't have to deal with frostbite? Grow your own blades." She rolled her shoulders as she dropped into a ready stance. "So obviously no webs, but any other rules for this?"
"Nothing I can't heal from in the next two hours, so no eyes, please don't stick your fingers in like, my nose, and..." Kyle shrugged, and waved a freshly taped hand downwards. "I mean I -am- wearing a cup but I'd kinda prefer if nobody kicked me in the junk today." He paused. "Or any day, but you know. Some days we can't help it. I think.. uh. I think there's a DR program designed just for that."
April cringed. "I guess that's one way to get used to working through the pain of someone hitting between the legs. No junk shots, minimize face shots, try not to break anything? I can work with that." She bounced in place lightly before darting forward, aiming an experimental jab at his right kidney.
Kyle barked a little surprised laugh, and twisted to take the jab on his hip. "Aw, that's cute." He said, grinning around his mouthguard. He used the twist to spin into a light kick to April's midsection.
April thought about letting it land to give her a better idea of what she was up against, but her instincts had other ideas, body turning into the move as her knee came parallel with her elbow and forearm. Kyle's foot connected firmly, and she used the momentum to push back, knee coming down and foot lashing out in a low kick. The combo was something she used to try and get an opponent off-balance, but the average mugger didn't tend to be particularly well-trained or agile.
Kyle was, appropriately, well-trained and agile. He also really -really- hated being kicked in the knee. Knees were designed in stupid ways and took way too long to heal.
He stepped into April's space, one foot behind her front leg, and twisted, letting the momentum of her kick, and his own weight pull them both down onto the mats.
April let out a soft grunt of air as her back hit the mat, immediately bucking her hips firmly off the mat in an effort to create some leverage and make enough space to get a leg through. It wasn't quite enough, though, so she brought her arms into the mix, a sharp elbow pushing against his torso as she wiggled.
The elbow in his ribs made Kyle snarl out a sharp noise, and instinctively pull away. "Rude!" He kicked at April's thigh with his heel, less of a strike and more of a solid shove away.
April rolled with the shove, pushing herself into a low crouch. "No room for polite when someone's got almost a foot and at least fifty pounds on you," she said with a wide grin, shifting sideways as she waited for his next move.
Kyle popped his mouthguard out with his tongue and held it with one side of his teeth. "Rude's more like... a compliment. If I tell you something's rude, keep using it." His grin was lopsided as he rolled back up into a matching crouch. "For serious, I can't think of anything you'd do that'd cross a line, but I mean, if you do I'll tap out." Then he leapt, aiming for a tackle to April's shoulder.
April bounced backwards, legs flat in front of her as she stretched up, propelling herself into a back handspring. She flipped again to increase distance, knees lightly bent on the landing and eyes alert as she tracked Kyle's movement.
She was just fast enough that Kyle's tackle missed, and he had to turn it into a roll, coming up in a crouch with one hand on the mat. "Kay. So no issues on defense, like, at all. You're fast, and you're agile." He spat the mouthguard out and tucked it into a pocket of his shorts. "I hate this thing, it's gross. We prob need to..." He paused. "Has anyone shown you the Danger Room yet? Because I think that's gonna be the place we do training for you, because powers-off isn't gonna get you anything new, but there sure as crap isn't room here for you to..." Kyle pointed up at the ceiling. "I mean, I don't shoot webs but I'm pretty sure that handspring wanted to go into a full leap? Or should've anyway, because then you could've come down hard on my arm or leg..."
"I ran into uh..." April trailed off, half-muttering to herself, "shit, name, rhymes with.. wait, right, that's it." She snapped her fingers in triumph. "Garrison! He was planning on adding new things to it and ended up giving me a primer on how it worked and helping me pull up a city scenario so I could swing for a bit." Her grin was wide at the thought. "I'd love to do more in there, it's really interesting. And yeah, in a more confined space I can go from that sitting back handspring into a crouching leap that I use as a starter for web momentum. I took some tumbling classes so that I'd have the control over my body to do it safely."
"Well, make sure he doesn't crush your head." Kyle tried for dry joke, but it came out as distinctly bitter. "The Danger Room's pretty cool, and honestly, I mean you probably need some close quarters fight practice, but the way your powers work.." He waved around at the room. "Even close quarters, I bet you were taught to get up and be sticky up on a wall. Spider stuff. I can assess here, but it's not gonna be an honest assessment. I can't see how you fight if you're hobbled with 'don't break Kyle's pretty face."
April studiously avoided what was obviously a touchy subject. "He showed me how to set basic scenarios and explained some of the science, then left me to it. Can it simulate attackers? Maybe you'd get a better read on it that way, and I wouldn't have to worry about breaking your pretty face or nails," she teased. "And yeah, close quarters.. basically do whatever I needed to get free or take the assailant down. But a lot of that involved maneuvers that attack the face or groin, or just are very dangerous for most people if I forget to pull my strength. Choke holds, some of the flip pins that twist the neck or shoulders. Can paralyze or kill someone if you're not careful."
"Aww, you think I'm pretty." Kyle grinned. "Yeah, it can do attackers. There's a whole ass AI in there, so the fucking thing learns from you too. There's a five hundred pound gorilla scenario that..." He shrugged, and then pulled his shorts to show a green and yellow bruise on his hip. "Literally, five hundred pound gorilla that knows martial arts. I hate it. I hate it so much. Every time I think I've gotten that thing figured out, it figures me out and I end up getting tossed into a swamp or the hostage banana gets eaten, or something."
"Huh, I could bench press it, if I got a good grip. Or kick it back." April blushed faintly. "Lots of pretty people here. I'm focused on finishing school since Doug was able to.. honestly, I don't know the specifics and probably wouldn't understand all of it, but it was awesome and I'm not gonna waste the gift. But focused doesn't mean completely unaware." She elbowed him lightly in the side. "So tell me about the teams this place has, Obi Won. I don't want to commit to anything until I'm done with school and know more about living here, but I'd like to know what the options are so I can start thinking about them."
"Okay, so. X-Men. Which is like, the team I'm on." Kyle said. "Like. We deal with bullshit like, anti mutant people, but also like, bullshit turbo mutant people. Fucking Magneto." He paused. "... Did you guys have a Magneto? Fuck. Anyway. And there's the spies. X-Force, or whatever they call themselves. Snow Valley. They do spy stuff. I have like, literally no idea what they do except I know Doug hacks things, and Jubilee steals stuff." He paused. "I guess, okay, there's also X-Factor, they do, um, detective stuff, right? Because god, the NYPD isn't going to give a shit about if we get robbed, so X-Factor gives a shit about that instead."
"He was.. no longer around? But Magneta, dude. Working around the magnetic and flight powers of someone that knows what they're doing? What a damn pain." She shook her head, nose crinkled. "Ugh, metal everywhere. Spy stuff is probably not for me. I can be stealthy, but there's a lot of... I prefer to be direct, basically. Also Dad's really not into the whole murder thing, and even though he's not here I don't want to disappoint him." He wouldn't know, but she was mostly her father's daughter, weird genetic mess or not. "It's weird, being in a position where I can't just work with NYPD," she added. "I guess whatever the X-Men did in my world didn't happen here. It.. I don't know specifics, but it was considered a large sacrifice and helped enhanced relations quite a bit. I'd never heard of Xavier's, so it might not have existed or they might have kept it quiet, but the X-People were mutants, led by this tiny, amazingly badass lady named Jubilation Lee. I was half terrified of her because her powers pack a lot of heat and I really, really hate intense heat, but also the few times I saw her or May talked about her she sounded so awesome."
Kyle's head tilted exactly like a confused dog's would have. "Jubilation. Lee. Jubilation somehow has a key to my car despite my car being electronic locks Jubilee. Jubilee steals my homemade fig bars Jubilee. Ran the X-Men." A female successor to Magneto, sure, that he could believe. Jubilee as anything but a snack-stealing spy confused him. "I mean yeah she's tiny and badass and I don't spar her because she clings to my head and hits me in my neck nerves and I hate it, but leading the X-Men?"
April came to a halt, eyes wide. "There's one HERE?" Her voice practically squeaked the last word out, cheeks turning red. "Oh, oh shit weird, weird, WAIT she introduced herself on the journals and I didn't connect it at all, holy shit." She shook her head several times, shadowy tendrils whipping around her face. "Okay, this is fine, I'm cool. Yes. I don't know the specifics, but she was leader of what was called the X-People. I don't know much about them--May did most of the team-ups."
"Well, you're def from another universe, cause..." Kyle spread his hands. "She was on the X-Men for a hot minute, then went to China and had some shit happen, and now she's over at X-Force doing spy things and hiding in air conditioning ducts. We're parkour pals though, I swear she can climb anything. I saw her climb a sheer sheet of metal once by melting herself little finger holes."
"I would like to see that," April replied as she thought about it. "From far enough away that I can't actually be melted with her powers, preferably. It sounds amazing though. I can.. kinda see the spy thing, I guess, with all of the anti-mutant sentiment here? Let other people punch things, be terrifying and probably sneaky scary as hell in the shadows."
Kyle nodded, a frown passing over his face before he seemed to force it off. "It's.. yeah, it's not great. We do our best, I wanna think that we're making it less bad, but dang." He shrugged. "Okay, our universe is a dystopia aside, team stuff. I mean, sounds like it's X-Men or X-Factor for you? I mean you don't have to be on a team, but like, you were already superheroing...."
"Yeah. Probably more X-Men I think, because I've never had a strong desire to actually be a detective, even if I worked with them. But first I'd like to meet some of them, see how we mesh?" She had the strength and enough of a healing factor to take on things that were dangerous for someone with a standard human body, and why not keep doing what she'd trained to do? Sitting around doing nothing except focusing on school made her antsy, but she was wise enough to realize that she couldn't just start swinging around Queens like she had at home. She needed to understand the lay of the land better, and with the anti-mutant sentiment she'd seen in the news and even just casually talked about in class... she probably could go it alone for a while, but a team would be better. Safer, smarter.
Dad would be proud of her maturity. He'd understood why she mostly preferred to go it alone, but he'd worried. If this world's behavior was more what it'd been like when he got bitten, she could appreciate those concerns. It was just a shame she couldn't tell him that she got it now.
"Yeah, I mean, totally, if you hated everyone, or didn't vibe with the X-Men, that would suck, but...." Kyle waved his hands. "I'm just sayin', even if you don't X-Men it up, we def need to Danger Room, because there's like thirty eight different parkour programs and one of them is Super Mario themed." He paused. "God, please tell me you have Nintendo where you're from, otherwise that sentence is gonna make no sense."
"I've played a little Mario themed stuff," April said with a laugh. "Not much, but I can imagine how fun a Super Mario themed scenario could be, at least. I hope the first time I don't get a reference I get to be one of the day's ten thousand... wait, please tell me this universe has XKCD. If not, I'm gonna be sad."
She couldn't imagine actually hating everyone on the team. Bullshit posturing was the thing that tended to turn her off from teamwork, people squabbling about who could or would do what instead of working together to make a plan and execute it before things got worse. "I know trust takes time to build," she finally said, trying to be careful with her words. "I don't mind putting in the work to let people know I'm competent and can be relied on in dangerous situations. It's just that my tolerance for people being unreasonable is pretty low. I don't like it when a situation devolves because the people who were supposed to be dealing with it decide to bicker instead, or because someone went off half-cocked without even checking that there's a plan first."
"Mostly we're good about that." Kyle said. "I mean. Cyclops loves telling us not to banter on the comms but that's really about as far as fucking around goes. I mean we're mostly professional about things, even if we're shit talking each other." He paused. "Mostly. I mean we're human. Mostly."
"I'm pretty sure I get my Spider-card revoked if I stop bantering. Parker family card? Both. It's the.. ugh, have you ever had to work with another group and they had someone so insistent on being in charge and beating their chests about it that they turned a routine multi-team effort into a needless clusterfuck? That's what I hated about grouping up. Johnny and the Five were fine, but I left the other idiots for May to deal with." They'd finally gotten to the Danger Room, and April looked up at Kyle. "So, what's the plan for this? Give me a scenario and see what I do and how I do it?"
"Yup." Kyle unlocked the doors with a thumbprint and waved April in. "I will be right back. I know there are voice controls but for reals, they kinda make me nervous I'll break something so I'm gonna go up to the control room and load up one of the Tarzan with baddies scenarios. You got any requests? I think we've got like, evil gorillas, evil moss men, evil tripod aliens..." He paused. "And misguided gorillas throwing barrels but that one is more jumping and less swinging. I think there's evil gators from the sewers too."
"Gonna have to program some Donkey Kong scenarios if they don't exist," she replied, black and blue swirling up her arms and over her feet and lower legs. "Can Tarzan gorillas and barrel-throwing ones be combined? That sounds hilarious and terrible."
"I mean. I don't know I can do it but I know the people who can and most of them are bribable with beer or peanut butter candy." Kyle said, with a grin. "We got Donkey Kong, but not with tarzan ropes." He disappeared into the control room, leaving April in the Danger Room alone for only a few minutes until the walls started dissolving into a lush, green jungle. The illusion was complete - the air grew thick and humid, the sounds of bugs and chirping frogs grew louder, and even the ground under April's feet went uneven and slightly soft with leaves and undergrowth.
The doors opened back up not long after. "Okay, I've got it on like, the playful mode, so this won't be the wrestle a gorilla run, just Tarzanning around and fighting... uh, it's probably gonna be jungle plant monsters and moss men, because I was not feeling aliens or monkeys." Kyle bounced on the ground a little, freshly untaped toes wiggling in the simulated leaves. "It's basically a course run, so there's gonna be some Indiana Jones like, temple to climb at the end, and probably a crystal skull to get to first."
"Goods and services can be exchanged if you want the room to be your own personal B-movie?" April joked easily, attention split between Kyle and the jungle. "What're the odds I get to yeet you over a trap at some point?"
"If you don't yeet me over a trap, or over a pit of gators, I'm going to actually cry." Kyle said, laughing. "Bee tee dubs, I am pretty sure this course actually has quicksand pits." He waited a moment, and then took a running start, leaping up into onto a tree and swinging himself onto the branch. "I turned off the bug swarms though. Figured you're not that much spider."
April laughed as she followed him into the trees, alternating between webs and vines as they moved along the area. "Definitely not that much spider, no matter how high in protein those crickets are."
April had responded positively when Kyle texted her about a spar to gauge her abilities, and made her way down to the gym to meet him. She was in the middle of warming up when the back of her neck prickled, and she looked up with a ready smile. "Hey, how have you been?"
"Eh, you know. Up to my nose in snow, but hey, I got a couple of substitute teaching days in, so cha-ching." Kyle made the universal gesture for cash money. "Money can purchase goods and... did you guys have The Simpsons in your 'verse?" He asked, as he wrapped tape around his hands. "Walk me through like, your previous fighty time history. Ima guess that like, you've had at least somebody teaching you how to throw a punch and not break your wrists, because Spider-Dad, but you know. Deets."
"Yeah, we had The Simpsons. Being here so far is more like.. hm, fun house mirrors? Everything is similar, but some of the details are just a bit off. Formal training is a few years of Krav Maga. After I got the basics down we focused more on making sure I knew how to pull back and keep it in average ranges to bruise or break, not murder. Dad's... real keen on not killing people unless it's a last resort." April finished her stretching, letting black form just over her hands as protection. "It's not as wet as it looks and provides better protection than just tape, if you want to poke at it," she offered, holding her hands out.
"I really really do want to poke it." Kyle said, with a grin. He tapped April's fist with a fingertip, and then carefully poked it with his extended claw. "Brain says sticky tar, finger says nope, just a little squishy. Bet that saves on parkour rash on the palms too, damn." He paused. "Haha. Parker rash. Sorry, you've probably gotten the Parkour - Parker joke before but I'm mad at myself that I didn't make that joke to the Spider-Man we know."
April laughed at the joke. "First time, actually. I can just see the long-suffering look on Dad's face though. Puns, our true weakness." She let her claws form, wiggling them at Kyle as he poked. "Now I think I know who Maya was referring to when she said she'd seen bigger claws."
"Seriously?" Kyle's head tilted sideways like a confused dog. "You swing around the city and walk up walls and nobody's made that joke. Shit. I feel a lot smarter than I am now." He slid his claws back in, and shook out his hand. "Yeah, they're a whole thing. Feet too." He wiggled his toes at April. "If I don't keep 'em trimmed down, I get stuck in carpets. It's funny as fuck. Okay, so Krav and basic safety stuff, which is a nice balance." He padded over to a set of gym mats. "I figure little sparring, maybe hit the agility course? We've got half a parkour course outside but, honestly, it's full of ice right now. Wiping out into snow is fun, wiping out into a sheet of ice sucks."
"Sounds good," April agreed easily as she followed him to the mats. "Extreme ice agility sounds like something they'd add to winter X-Games. Lace up your skates, hope you don't lose a finger or eye. I guess in your case, just something over the rest of the feet so you don't have to deal with frostbite? Grow your own blades." She rolled her shoulders as she dropped into a ready stance. "So obviously no webs, but any other rules for this?"
"Nothing I can't heal from in the next two hours, so no eyes, please don't stick your fingers in like, my nose, and..." Kyle shrugged, and waved a freshly taped hand downwards. "I mean I -am- wearing a cup but I'd kinda prefer if nobody kicked me in the junk today." He paused. "Or any day, but you know. Some days we can't help it. I think.. uh. I think there's a DR program designed just for that."
April cringed. "I guess that's one way to get used to working through the pain of someone hitting between the legs. No junk shots, minimize face shots, try not to break anything? I can work with that." She bounced in place lightly before darting forward, aiming an experimental jab at his right kidney.
Kyle barked a little surprised laugh, and twisted to take the jab on his hip. "Aw, that's cute." He said, grinning around his mouthguard. He used the twist to spin into a light kick to April's midsection.
April thought about letting it land to give her a better idea of what she was up against, but her instincts had other ideas, body turning into the move as her knee came parallel with her elbow and forearm. Kyle's foot connected firmly, and she used the momentum to push back, knee coming down and foot lashing out in a low kick. The combo was something she used to try and get an opponent off-balance, but the average mugger didn't tend to be particularly well-trained or agile.
Kyle was, appropriately, well-trained and agile. He also really -really- hated being kicked in the knee. Knees were designed in stupid ways and took way too long to heal.
He stepped into April's space, one foot behind her front leg, and twisted, letting the momentum of her kick, and his own weight pull them both down onto the mats.
April let out a soft grunt of air as her back hit the mat, immediately bucking her hips firmly off the mat in an effort to create some leverage and make enough space to get a leg through. It wasn't quite enough, though, so she brought her arms into the mix, a sharp elbow pushing against his torso as she wiggled.
The elbow in his ribs made Kyle snarl out a sharp noise, and instinctively pull away. "Rude!" He kicked at April's thigh with his heel, less of a strike and more of a solid shove away.
April rolled with the shove, pushing herself into a low crouch. "No room for polite when someone's got almost a foot and at least fifty pounds on you," she said with a wide grin, shifting sideways as she waited for his next move.
Kyle popped his mouthguard out with his tongue and held it with one side of his teeth. "Rude's more like... a compliment. If I tell you something's rude, keep using it." His grin was lopsided as he rolled back up into a matching crouch. "For serious, I can't think of anything you'd do that'd cross a line, but I mean, if you do I'll tap out." Then he leapt, aiming for a tackle to April's shoulder.
April bounced backwards, legs flat in front of her as she stretched up, propelling herself into a back handspring. She flipped again to increase distance, knees lightly bent on the landing and eyes alert as she tracked Kyle's movement.
She was just fast enough that Kyle's tackle missed, and he had to turn it into a roll, coming up in a crouch with one hand on the mat. "Kay. So no issues on defense, like, at all. You're fast, and you're agile." He spat the mouthguard out and tucked it into a pocket of his shorts. "I hate this thing, it's gross. We prob need to..." He paused. "Has anyone shown you the Danger Room yet? Because I think that's gonna be the place we do training for you, because powers-off isn't gonna get you anything new, but there sure as crap isn't room here for you to..." Kyle pointed up at the ceiling. "I mean, I don't shoot webs but I'm pretty sure that handspring wanted to go into a full leap? Or should've anyway, because then you could've come down hard on my arm or leg..."
"I ran into uh..." April trailed off, half-muttering to herself, "shit, name, rhymes with.. wait, right, that's it." She snapped her fingers in triumph. "Garrison! He was planning on adding new things to it and ended up giving me a primer on how it worked and helping me pull up a city scenario so I could swing for a bit." Her grin was wide at the thought. "I'd love to do more in there, it's really interesting. And yeah, in a more confined space I can go from that sitting back handspring into a crouching leap that I use as a starter for web momentum. I took some tumbling classes so that I'd have the control over my body to do it safely."
"Well, make sure he doesn't crush your head." Kyle tried for dry joke, but it came out as distinctly bitter. "The Danger Room's pretty cool, and honestly, I mean you probably need some close quarters fight practice, but the way your powers work.." He waved around at the room. "Even close quarters, I bet you were taught to get up and be sticky up on a wall. Spider stuff. I can assess here, but it's not gonna be an honest assessment. I can't see how you fight if you're hobbled with 'don't break Kyle's pretty face."
April studiously avoided what was obviously a touchy subject. "He showed me how to set basic scenarios and explained some of the science, then left me to it. Can it simulate attackers? Maybe you'd get a better read on it that way, and I wouldn't have to worry about breaking your pretty face or nails," she teased. "And yeah, close quarters.. basically do whatever I needed to get free or take the assailant down. But a lot of that involved maneuvers that attack the face or groin, or just are very dangerous for most people if I forget to pull my strength. Choke holds, some of the flip pins that twist the neck or shoulders. Can paralyze or kill someone if you're not careful."
"Aww, you think I'm pretty." Kyle grinned. "Yeah, it can do attackers. There's a whole ass AI in there, so the fucking thing learns from you too. There's a five hundred pound gorilla scenario that..." He shrugged, and then pulled his shorts to show a green and yellow bruise on his hip. "Literally, five hundred pound gorilla that knows martial arts. I hate it. I hate it so much. Every time I think I've gotten that thing figured out, it figures me out and I end up getting tossed into a swamp or the hostage banana gets eaten, or something."
"Huh, I could bench press it, if I got a good grip. Or kick it back." April blushed faintly. "Lots of pretty people here. I'm focused on finishing school since Doug was able to.. honestly, I don't know the specifics and probably wouldn't understand all of it, but it was awesome and I'm not gonna waste the gift. But focused doesn't mean completely unaware." She elbowed him lightly in the side. "So tell me about the teams this place has, Obi Won. I don't want to commit to anything until I'm done with school and know more about living here, but I'd like to know what the options are so I can start thinking about them."
"Okay, so. X-Men. Which is like, the team I'm on." Kyle said. "Like. We deal with bullshit like, anti mutant people, but also like, bullshit turbo mutant people. Fucking Magneto." He paused. "... Did you guys have a Magneto? Fuck. Anyway. And there's the spies. X-Force, or whatever they call themselves. Snow Valley. They do spy stuff. I have like, literally no idea what they do except I know Doug hacks things, and Jubilee steals stuff." He paused. "I guess, okay, there's also X-Factor, they do, um, detective stuff, right? Because god, the NYPD isn't going to give a shit about if we get robbed, so X-Factor gives a shit about that instead."
"He was.. no longer around? But Magneta, dude. Working around the magnetic and flight powers of someone that knows what they're doing? What a damn pain." She shook her head, nose crinkled. "Ugh, metal everywhere. Spy stuff is probably not for me. I can be stealthy, but there's a lot of... I prefer to be direct, basically. Also Dad's really not into the whole murder thing, and even though he's not here I don't want to disappoint him." He wouldn't know, but she was mostly her father's daughter, weird genetic mess or not. "It's weird, being in a position where I can't just work with NYPD," she added. "I guess whatever the X-Men did in my world didn't happen here. It.. I don't know specifics, but it was considered a large sacrifice and helped enhanced relations quite a bit. I'd never heard of Xavier's, so it might not have existed or they might have kept it quiet, but the X-People were mutants, led by this tiny, amazingly badass lady named Jubilation Lee. I was half terrified of her because her powers pack a lot of heat and I really, really hate intense heat, but also the few times I saw her or May talked about her she sounded so awesome."
Kyle's head tilted exactly like a confused dog's would have. "Jubilation. Lee. Jubilation somehow has a key to my car despite my car being electronic locks Jubilee. Jubilee steals my homemade fig bars Jubilee. Ran the X-Men." A female successor to Magneto, sure, that he could believe. Jubilee as anything but a snack-stealing spy confused him. "I mean yeah she's tiny and badass and I don't spar her because she clings to my head and hits me in my neck nerves and I hate it, but leading the X-Men?"
April came to a halt, eyes wide. "There's one HERE?" Her voice practically squeaked the last word out, cheeks turning red. "Oh, oh shit weird, weird, WAIT she introduced herself on the journals and I didn't connect it at all, holy shit." She shook her head several times, shadowy tendrils whipping around her face. "Okay, this is fine, I'm cool. Yes. I don't know the specifics, but she was leader of what was called the X-People. I don't know much about them--May did most of the team-ups."
"Well, you're def from another universe, cause..." Kyle spread his hands. "She was on the X-Men for a hot minute, then went to China and had some shit happen, and now she's over at X-Force doing spy things and hiding in air conditioning ducts. We're parkour pals though, I swear she can climb anything. I saw her climb a sheer sheet of metal once by melting herself little finger holes."
"I would like to see that," April replied as she thought about it. "From far enough away that I can't actually be melted with her powers, preferably. It sounds amazing though. I can.. kinda see the spy thing, I guess, with all of the anti-mutant sentiment here? Let other people punch things, be terrifying and probably sneaky scary as hell in the shadows."
Kyle nodded, a frown passing over his face before he seemed to force it off. "It's.. yeah, it's not great. We do our best, I wanna think that we're making it less bad, but dang." He shrugged. "Okay, our universe is a dystopia aside, team stuff. I mean, sounds like it's X-Men or X-Factor for you? I mean you don't have to be on a team, but like, you were already superheroing...."
"Yeah. Probably more X-Men I think, because I've never had a strong desire to actually be a detective, even if I worked with them. But first I'd like to meet some of them, see how we mesh?" She had the strength and enough of a healing factor to take on things that were dangerous for someone with a standard human body, and why not keep doing what she'd trained to do? Sitting around doing nothing except focusing on school made her antsy, but she was wise enough to realize that she couldn't just start swinging around Queens like she had at home. She needed to understand the lay of the land better, and with the anti-mutant sentiment she'd seen in the news and even just casually talked about in class... she probably could go it alone for a while, but a team would be better. Safer, smarter.
Dad would be proud of her maturity. He'd understood why she mostly preferred to go it alone, but he'd worried. If this world's behavior was more what it'd been like when he got bitten, she could appreciate those concerns. It was just a shame she couldn't tell him that she got it now.
"Yeah, I mean, totally, if you hated everyone, or didn't vibe with the X-Men, that would suck, but...." Kyle waved his hands. "I'm just sayin', even if you don't X-Men it up, we def need to Danger Room, because there's like thirty eight different parkour programs and one of them is Super Mario themed." He paused. "God, please tell me you have Nintendo where you're from, otherwise that sentence is gonna make no sense."
"I've played a little Mario themed stuff," April said with a laugh. "Not much, but I can imagine how fun a Super Mario themed scenario could be, at least. I hope the first time I don't get a reference I get to be one of the day's ten thousand... wait, please tell me this universe has XKCD. If not, I'm gonna be sad."
She couldn't imagine actually hating everyone on the team. Bullshit posturing was the thing that tended to turn her off from teamwork, people squabbling about who could or would do what instead of working together to make a plan and execute it before things got worse. "I know trust takes time to build," she finally said, trying to be careful with her words. "I don't mind putting in the work to let people know I'm competent and can be relied on in dangerous situations. It's just that my tolerance for people being unreasonable is pretty low. I don't like it when a situation devolves because the people who were supposed to be dealing with it decide to bicker instead, or because someone went off half-cocked without even checking that there's a plan first."
"Mostly we're good about that." Kyle said. "I mean. Cyclops loves telling us not to banter on the comms but that's really about as far as fucking around goes. I mean we're mostly professional about things, even if we're shit talking each other." He paused. "Mostly. I mean we're human. Mostly."
"I'm pretty sure I get my Spider-card revoked if I stop bantering. Parker family card? Both. It's the.. ugh, have you ever had to work with another group and they had someone so insistent on being in charge and beating their chests about it that they turned a routine multi-team effort into a needless clusterfuck? That's what I hated about grouping up. Johnny and the Five were fine, but I left the other idiots for May to deal with." They'd finally gotten to the Danger Room, and April looked up at Kyle. "So, what's the plan for this? Give me a scenario and see what I do and how I do it?"
"Yup." Kyle unlocked the doors with a thumbprint and waved April in. "I will be right back. I know there are voice controls but for reals, they kinda make me nervous I'll break something so I'm gonna go up to the control room and load up one of the Tarzan with baddies scenarios. You got any requests? I think we've got like, evil gorillas, evil moss men, evil tripod aliens..." He paused. "And misguided gorillas throwing barrels but that one is more jumping and less swinging. I think there's evil gators from the sewers too."
"Gonna have to program some Donkey Kong scenarios if they don't exist," she replied, black and blue swirling up her arms and over her feet and lower legs. "Can Tarzan gorillas and barrel-throwing ones be combined? That sounds hilarious and terrible."
"I mean. I don't know I can do it but I know the people who can and most of them are bribable with beer or peanut butter candy." Kyle said, with a grin. "We got Donkey Kong, but not with tarzan ropes." He disappeared into the control room, leaving April in the Danger Room alone for only a few minutes until the walls started dissolving into a lush, green jungle. The illusion was complete - the air grew thick and humid, the sounds of bugs and chirping frogs grew louder, and even the ground under April's feet went uneven and slightly soft with leaves and undergrowth.
The doors opened back up not long after. "Okay, I've got it on like, the playful mode, so this won't be the wrestle a gorilla run, just Tarzanning around and fighting... uh, it's probably gonna be jungle plant monsters and moss men, because I was not feeling aliens or monkeys." Kyle bounced on the ground a little, freshly untaped toes wiggling in the simulated leaves. "It's basically a course run, so there's gonna be some Indiana Jones like, temple to climb at the end, and probably a crystal skull to get to first."
"Goods and services can be exchanged if you want the room to be your own personal B-movie?" April joked easily, attention split between Kyle and the jungle. "What're the odds I get to yeet you over a trap at some point?"
"If you don't yeet me over a trap, or over a pit of gators, I'm going to actually cry." Kyle said, laughing. "Bee tee dubs, I am pretty sure this course actually has quicksand pits." He waited a moment, and then took a running start, leaping up into onto a tree and swinging himself onto the branch. "I turned off the bug swarms though. Figured you're not that much spider."
April laughed as she followed him into the trees, alternating between webs and vines as they moved along the area. "Definitely not that much spider, no matter how high in protein those crickets are."
