[Paul, Nathan] Not bad for a couple old men.

[x-vega.livejournal.com]

Paul and Nathan have some playtime in the Danger Room.  Nate stretches his TK, Paul realizes that he's been avoiding working in tight spaces a little too long.  They make a bit of a mess and call it a day - or Paul does - before Nate keels over.  They end up covered in metal glitter.  You really can't leave them alone for a minute.


Moira's suggestion, that he try this blindfolded. Hearing the buzzing of the targets as they moved through the air around him, Nathan was glad that he hadn't programmed them to fire back just yet. This TK 'sonar' trick Moira had come up with in one of their endless theoretical discussions was a little harder to put into practice than he'd expected.

He 'pushed' hard against one target as it moved past it, feeling it shatter and fall to the ground. The others merely picked up speed, and he sighed, concentrating. There had to be better ways to keep his mind off the kids...

Paul sat in the control area of the Danger Room, watching Nathan practice against the targets blindfolded.  Interesting.  He hadn't gotten a lot of work with telekinesis and it looked like a challenge waiting to be accepted.  He toggled the intercom when Nathan knocked out the last of that series of targets. 

"Interested in company?" he asked. 

Nathan had been peripherally aware that someone was watching him from the booth, but hadn't spared the concentration to find out out. When he heard Paul's voice, though, he slipped off the blindfold, peering up in that direction. "Sure," he called back. "Come on down."

Paul spared Nathan the gameshow jokes and joined him in the room.  "What's the game?" he asked, stretching a little to make sure he didn't have any muscle knots that might hamper him.  "I like the blindfold, very daring," he teased. 

"Thank you. I am constantly trying to improve my fashion sense," Nathan said with a brief grin. "As for the game... I guess it's probably a choice of automated targets or each other. I was just practicing a new trick... TK as sonar."

"Your call," Paul said, shrugging.  "I'm the one interruping your training.  I was just, well... you know."  He waved a hand vaguely. 

Nathan spared some concentration to sweep up the remains of the first series of targets. "Don't know that I'm actually up to anything resembling hand-to-hand," he confessed, raising his still-bandaged wrist to explain. The ribs were still pretty touchy, too. "But I am actually used to training with someone with enhanced speed, so I'm game for up-close-and-personal if you are."

"That would be very welcome.  I've not had as much chance for team training as I'd like.  I miss it," he admitted.  There was a lot he didn't miss about his other life, but the training sessions and field work were incomparable when it all went smoothly. 

"What sort of exercises do you generally do when you're training with someone?" Nathan asked curiously. "David - that's the training partner I mentioned - is obsessed with... well, tag, basically. Constantly trying to beat the speed of thought." He grinned again, suddenly. "He generally wins about half the time, depending on what other variables we throw it. His wife's an electrokinetic and liked to liven up the scenarios sometimes."

Paul smiled and leaned against the wall, thinking.  "I haven't played tag in ages.  'Rora was faster than I was but never quite as strategic, which gave me half a chance of winning, and I could always outlast her just so long as I stayed away.  Training exercises could be working together against the room, getting through an obstable course - as a team or as opponents - and then there were the longer strategy games set up to take best advantage of everyone's abilities, but under time constraints.  A fair number of the people I worked with weren't dealing with mutations, per se, but more with magic or cybernetics.  It wasn't the kind of thing you wanted to turn against someone you were working with."

Nathan nodded thoughtfully. "Why not a variation on tag, then?" he suggested. "I'll program the targets to shoot back and come at both of us. Should make it nicely complicated."

Paul smiled.  "The more complicated the better.  At least in here.  Out there, life can stay simple, thank you.  Any time now."

Nathan looked up at the booth, using his telekinesis to work the console and order up the appropriate type of targets. "We should start on opposite sides of the room, just to be fair," he said with a grin, heading over to the opposite wall as the drones started to appear. "Who's 'it'? I don't have a coin to flip for it, sadly..."

"Me, of course," Paul said, flicking his hair back and adding a hint of a sashay to his walk for a few steps before starting to laugh.  "Because I am."  He looked over his shoulder at Nathan, still laughing. 

He had overdone it with the drones just a little, Nathan thought with a smirk, turning once he reached the wall and sizing them up. A solid two dozen of them, all with little gun emplacements. They weren't anywhere near lethal, he knew, but getting hit with them would be something to avoid if at all possible. "Anytime you're ready, then," he said, throwing up a partial TK shield and waiting for Paul to turn back to face him before he reached out and triggered the drones to 'active'.

"Let's play," Paul said, turning around and marking in his mind where the drones were starting from.  If he moved fast enough, they wouldn't be able to lock on him and they'd turn their attention to Nathan first, which suited him fine.

Nathan was half-expecting Paul to come right at him - David had always been very direct, when they played this game. But he was surprised when instead of taking the direct approach, Paul proceeded to emulate a pingpong ball, actually catching the drones and throwing them at him. Nathan gritted his teeth and deflected them even as they came at him, their little guns blazing with energy discharge as they retargeted on him.

The room was a challenge, far more than the drones.  Paul realized belatedly that it had been a long time since his last all-out contest in an enclosed space.  At first, he resorted to throwing the drones at Nathan until he had a better sense of the space and the timing.  Then he sent a tightly compacted flare down from above, letting it luminesce fully just above Nathan's head where it wouldn't damage his retinas but would definitely be inconvenient, while he completed the curving trajectory he had set for himself and shot back toward Nathan from behind. 

Seeing spots from the flare, Nathan sensed him coming and threw up a half-shield behind him. The impact was incredible, enough to send him staggering, even though his shield held up. Nathan turned the near-fall into a roll, coming back to his feet and wrenching telekinetically at the drones, trying to get them to target on Paul.

The shield was out some inches further than Paul had expected and he didn't get the chance to pull his speed as much as he'd wanted.  Merde.  Instinctively, he threw himself back along his previous course when had control again, seeing the drones coming.  He took two unpleasantly hair-raising hits while dodging a few more, letting the drones close in before letting out another intense burst of light and dropping to the floor faster than a falling stone.  Nathan was obviously still recovering from the flash, at least physically, so Paul swooped in toward him, aiming not at him directly but a little to the side.  With his control of speed and direction in the tight space increasing, he could circle like a hawk, whipping around Nathan several times with no particular set orbit, relying on instinct.  If he pulled in tight enough on any one turn, he could reach out and touch.  Moreover, the drones would be drawn to them both and had a greater chance of hitting Nathan than himself. 

Okay, this was considerably more challenging than he'd expected. David didn't fly, after all... Move, Nathan told himself as Paul made another pass. Knocking a path through the drones for himself, he launched himself up off the floor telekinetically, bracing himself against the ceiling to give himself a moment to let his eyes clear. The drones he hadn't knocked off-course were still firing at him, and he could feel his shield starting to fray already. Always harder to deflect enegy....

Smart, getting a wall behind him, Paul thought.  He redirected and slowed a little to think, picking up a quite few drones tracking him as he did so.  He wondered if he couldn't herd them all in Nathan's direction, turning their attention back every time.  He swept back toward Nathan, keeping to the middle of the room and zigzagging enough to make the drones miss, for the most part, but not enough to lose them.  He led his following of little round laser-puppies straight to Nathan and then dropped as fast as he could.  He hit the floor hands first and rolled to his feet, looking to get a fix on Nathan himself.  Rather mercilessly, he let another flash off in the general area, knowing the electronic eyes would clear long before Nathan's and his own eyes were never bothered by his light.

He might as well have left the blindfold on, Nathan thought, and the thought struck him with a startling clarity. Closing his eyes, ignoring the bite of the small energy blasts as more of the drones targeted on him, he focused his telekinetic sonar-effect. There were the drones, and there was Paul...

And the shield wavered, some of the energy-blasts breaking through. Idiot! Nathan thought, concentrating on breaking his fall. Of course he couldn't project TK outwards in a wave-front like that and hold the shield properly at the same time...

Paul saw Nathan close his eyes and then it seemed like he hit some kind of snag because the energy blasts from the drones started to pummel him and he dropped.  Paul moved quickly to get under him.  Nathan's fall wasn't as fast as gravity would have drawn him down, and Paul felt resistance from an invisible shield that shredded against his arms and chest as he caught Nathan and let a little of the momentum bear them both to the floor. 

"Tag," he said cheekily, as his feet hit the floor and Nathan's full weight sagged against him briefly.  Paul was a little worried about Nathan, but he held that back until he got more information from the man.

Dazed by the energy blasts and the fall, the only thing Nathan registered clearly was that the drones were still out there and active and neither he nor Paul were currently defending themselves at the moment. #Stop,# he thought, only half-aware of what he was doing as the image of their interior circuitry - he'd gotten a quick look at the remains of the last set, after all - sprung to mind and he tore indiscriminately at the image, severing connections.

Every drone in the Danger Room exploded.

The explosions were unexpected and alarming and Paul let Nathan's weight drop them both to the floor.  He tucked his chin and flung his arm over his face, shielding Nathan as well as he did so.  Twisted metal rained down on both of them and rang against the floor like hail.  What the hell...

"Shit..." Nathan said weakly as the rain of metal stopped and Paul moved away. "Didn't.. mean to do that..." He shook his head doggedly as he pushed himself partially upright. Seeing double... that was weird...

"You did that?"  Paul pulled shrapnel out of his hair and sat down next to Nathan.

"Trying to stop them..." Nathan shook his head again, willing it to clear. It wasn't obliging. He winced, rubbing at his eyes. "Thought I'd just grab the one closest... grabbed all of them, instead." Sighing heavily, he looked at Paul, trying to focus. "I am clearly having power control issues. Probably should have made that clear before we started this."

"Not a problem.  We had a window while they locked on us, though, just so you know.  Might not have felt like it, but it was fairly substantial.  Come on."  Paul got to his feet and held out his hands to help Nathan up.  "I don't want to draw Dr MacTaggart's ire.  Maybe you should take a break?"

"Just need a minute, I think," Nathan said, letting Paul help him to his feet. The shock - backlash? was starting to fade, leaving only a dull headache behind. He straightened, taking a deep breath, and started to gather the metal shrapnel and the larger bits and pieces of the drones together. "Besides," he said with a lopsided smile as he crushed them together into an easily transportable package. "My turn to be 'it'."

"You know," Paul said, shaking a small silver fragment out of his shirt, where it had been making his back itch.  "When you're feeling up to it, we really ought to play this game outside.  Maybe in the dark.  I'll bet you might come in handy training some of our flight students."

Nathan's smile grew. "Any opportunity to be sneaky," he said with a chuckle, moving the compacted mass of metal to the side of the Danger Room. "Should I order up another set of drones?"

"That last batch stung."  Paul mock-pouted, flexing his shoulders and rubbing at his hip.  Now that the adrenaline was dropping, he could feel the hits.  "It's up to you."

"Why don't we make it simple tag?" Nathan suggested wryly. "Just so that I don't have the opportunity to blow up anything else..."

"Except me," Paul said, eyeing him warily but smiling.  "I'll take my chances.  Let's play."

"Back to our respective corners?" Nathan asked lightly, turning to head back towards the far wall. He was already plotting out a plan of attack as he did. Not ping-pong. Pinball...

"Indeed.  We need a  bell in here to start the match."  Paul ran his hands through his hair and got ready to go again.  Without the drones, he was actually at a disadvantage now, and he hurt from the shots he'd taken.  C'est la vie.  He shook it off and waited for Nathan's signal to go.

Nathan was more than a little sore himself. He hadn't taken that many hits before falling, but his ribs had already been bothering him. "Ready?" he asked Paul, who nodded.

Not thinking was going to be the key.  That was going to be hard but not impossible.  Last second decisions and patterns would probably save Paul,  so would keeping a rein on himself except for occasional bursts of speed.  Once Nate knew him well, it would be really difficult but then again, he'd know Nate better too.  Paul settled for taking off as soon as he'd nodded, moving straight for Nathan at a dangerous speed.  Hopefully Nate's self preservation would keep his TK power busy for a few moments.

This was more familiar. Nathan stayed right where he was, refusing to let himself be distracted by the speed of Paul's approach. Not bothering to try and lock onto the other man's thought, he threw up random shields throughout the room, starting with one directly in front of them and then duplicating it rapidly.

Paul was expecting Nathan to put a shield in front of himself, he veered to the left marginally and threw a flash of light as he went by.  Staying close to the walls seemed like a good idea for the moment, he shot up along the back wall and came to a complete halt for two heartbeats before dropping back toward the floor. 

More. Nathan closed his eyes against the flash of light and doubled the number of shields in the room in an instant. Hanging vertically in the air, at angles, along the floors and the ceilings... even as he did it, he reached out with the 'sonar' effect he'd been experimenting with and felt the disturbance in the air molecules, the trail of Paul's passing. If he could just project that ahead a little, get an actual lock on him...

There was no way to build up enough speed to create a cushion of air to block the impact of anything Nathan stuck in front of him.  Fortunately, Paul had hit some fairly immobile things at some excessive speeds - his theory was that his physical durability was to compensate for his complete lack of common sense - and bounced right off with only bruises to show for it.  When he hit the first shield, it was at an angle and he glanced away, then hit another.  It was irritating was what it was.  With very little else in the room, he had no hiding space.  He braced himself and headed back for the first shield, partly to test its strength and partly to see if it were still there.

Nathan felt the impact and wobbled a little; it was a strain, holding this many. There was a flicker of thought from Paul - curiosity about the shield? - and Nathan immediately dropped it and started to shift the others around. He could have tried to grab Paul right there, but he was more curious to see how the other man reacted.

The shield gave a little.  Paul felt like a rat in a lab; being indoors was never his preference and the confines of the room and the shields he couldn't see combined with being pursued were enough to fray the edges of his composure.  Still, the game was keep-away and so he would do just that.  He steeled himself and settled for actually attempting to wear Nate down by hitting the shields hard.  The only time he attempted to stop was before he hit the walls.  That actually made things a little more random and the pain of each impact kept his head clear.

He was going to have a hell of a headache after this. Ah, well - he'd sleep soundly tonight. A few of the shields fragmented as Paul hit them, but Nathan replaced them with others and kept shifting them. There was nothing predictable about Paul's movements, but the longer he kept it up, the closer a 'lock' Nathan got on where he was when he did move. The disturbance in the air just ahead of him was very different from the one in his wake...

Working against something with telepathy and telekinesis with nothing but his speed and agility to keep him from being tagged was more of an accomplishment than Paul allowed.  His thoughts, though were that he was fairly certain, given Nathan's abilities, he wasn't going to be able to stay clear until Nathan wore down.  And moreover, he was no where near his best.  This, Paul felt, was inexcusable.  He reversed direction without hitting a shield, adding some intent to his movements, and slid to the floor.  He wasn't anywhere near tired.  Just frustrated with his lack of strategy in the open space. 

Nathan followed Paul's downwards trail through the air with his mind, frowning thoughtfully. He was getting the hang of this new trick, rather faster than he'd expected. Moira would be pleased. "I think we should have gone with the drones again," he said, wandering over to Paul.

"In this space, I'm no match for you," Paul admitted easily.  "Not at keep-away, anyway.  I would be more intrigued if there were a way to make your shields visible."  He flexed his left arm, wincing.  "As it is, it's simply a losing proposition, unless I choose to incapacitate you to keep you from getting to me."

Nathan thought about it for a moment, even as he gave Paul a quick 'easier said than done, pal' grin. "I have a thought," he said, pulling at the remains of the last two batches of drones, both the debris he'd swept over to the side and what he'd compacted into a 'package'. Once he had a firm grip on all of it, he pulled it apart, into shimmering clouds of metal flakes. "This should work," he said, reestablishing his shields, half a dozen at a time, and coating them in the metal pieces.

Paul ran a finger over a now-glittering shield, intrigued by the texture and the idea that he was touching something that only existed because Nathan was thinking about it.  "Clarice would approve," he noted dryly, grinning at Nathan.

Nathan chuckled, raising a slightly unsteady hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead. A little harder than he'd expected; he certainly wasn't going to be able to manage more than a couple dozen shields while he was simultaneously holding the coating together. Probably excellent practice in multi-tasking, though. "Anytime you're ready, then," he said, backing away and straining to reestablish the 'sonar' field as well. He should be able to fill the room with it.

Paul noted the tremor in Nathan's hand and held up his own hand for a pause.  "There's no reason to be over-doing it right now, Nate.  In fact, this is the perfect time to be getting rest."  He crossed his arms and frowned at Nathan a little.  "Should we continue?"

Nathan gave it a moment of serious thought. He had been trying hard to wrap his mind around the idea that you didn't always have to push as hard as you could when it came to training, but he knew he was constantly backsliding. "A few minutes more," he said, assessing his level of fatigue and the headache as it currently stood. "I want to see if this works."

Paul nodded.  "Five, no more."  His tone was flat and firm.  If Nathan were admitting to being fatigued, chances were he was thoroughly exhausted.  Men.  Paul wasn't in the mood to carry yet another person to bed.  He lifted off and hovered in the middle of the room.  "Ready?"

"Ready," Nathan said and closed his eyes again as Paul took off. He felt one impact against his shield, then another, and started to move them around. Fractal patterns, think fractals, he told himself, even as he traced Paul's trail through the air by the disturbance in the air molecules. His TK field was right out to the walls of the Danger Room, and yet not hindering the strength of the shields.

Damnit, some mutations were hard to confront.  Paul assumed that distracting Nathan by an assault on the shields was doing something.  To add to things he aimed a concussive burst, not at Nathan but beyond the shields above and behind him, across the room.  The impact of it wouldn't hurt, buffered by the shields in place, but it would rock Nathan a little and shake his concentration.

Ow. Nathan gritted his teeth as two shields flew apart under the impact of the blast, their metal coating falling like glittering snow. He didn't replaced them, concentrating instead on tracking Paul, on shifting the remaining shields around. Let him hit some, Nathan told himself. Hit him with others. The speed of sound did not beat the speed of thought. He finally decided on what Paul's likely trajectory was, and slammed a shield downwards, letting it warp. Like a net, he thought, and the metal coating on the shield responded to the image, reshaping itself.

It didn't quite catch him, but it was enough.  The edge of the 'net' caught Paul's left shoulder and, already weakened, it made a crunching noise.  The impact and the pain sent him veering off course and in the narrow room, he didn't have time to recover completely.  He hit the far wall with a crack, back and head, and gritted his teeth.  The inside of his head was full of curses in multiple languages.  He didn't fall; he instinctively extended his right hand and filled the room with light and a wave of force.  He wasn't as powerful as many, but the enclose space could work for him as well. 

Cursing... and pain? Nathan instinctively dropped his shields, reaching out with his TK to return the same favor Paul had done for him earlier, if necessary. But then the air exploded with light, and Nathan felt the disturbance in the air as the wave of force came at him.

He flung himself up off the ground, imagining a shield like the prow of a boat in front of him. It cut through the wave neatly, and he extended the leap telekinetically, aiming right at the wall, the spot beside Paul.

Nathan was coming close, planning to tag him physically, Paul thought.  It wasn't tag if he touched Nathan first though, was it?  Besides, he could see the waver of a shield cutting through the shimmering haze of metal dust drifting down.  He was certain that wasn't good for Nathan's lungs, or his own, even if he were a little tougher than most.  He picked the other shoulder this time and slammed into Nathan's shields, a little left of center, with as much force as he thought he could get away with.

The metal dust, interestingly enough, helped the sonar field. He felt Paul coming at him and thus had a moment to brace himself. It wasn't enough, of course. The impact knocked him off balance and nearly out of the air. But he'd had a chance to make the shield as strong as it could possibly be and it had bounced Paul backwards a little as well.

He imagined a giant clawed arm - like Morgan's exoskeleton, a voice from the back of his currently rather-dazed mind pointed out nastily - and grabbed at Paul.

Bands closed around him and Paul forced himself to remain calm, hovering.  He hated being trapped.  The room was bad enough.  He exhaled slowly, feeling his composure settle again. His attention as on Nathan, making sure he wasn't going to fall. 

Nathan was perhaps ten feet off the ground and still sinking slowly. "Can we call that tag?" he wheezed, and then let go anyway, knowing it was a choice between holding Paul and falling himself. Which he sort of did anyway, although he managed to land more or less on his feet before falling over. "Well," he said breathlessly as Paul drifted downwards. "That was... I think I'm done."

"I know you are," Paul said, landing next to Nathan and looking down on his prone form.  "I don't even think your five minutes is up."  He grinned and then his expression soured as he went to push his hair out of his eyes.  He rubbed at his left shoulder without comment, fingers checking to make sure things were basically intact.  They seemed to be, it just hurt.

He liked the floor, Nathan decided, and didn't get up. He wasn't sure his head would stay attached if he did. "You okay?" he asked, grimacing a bit as he raised his good hand to rub at his eyes. "Didn't mean to send you into the wall like that."

"I'm fine."  Paul shrugged and then realized that had been a bad idea.  "I think it's just soft tissue damage.  Don't apologize, it was a good session."

Off the floor, Dayspring. Nathan pushed himself up with his good arm, wincing a little as his head did indeed act like it was about to topple off his shoulders. "Good," he agreed, still sounding rather breathless. He looked around at the fine, sparkling dust covering the floor, as well as himself and Paul. "Think I made a bit of a mess, though..."

Paul grinned.  "Quite the party, I'd say.  They're going to wonder what we were up to in here.  Come on."  He held out his right hand.  "We'd better clean up." 

Nathan took the offered hand, concentrating on getting and keeping his balance as Paul pulled him back to his feet. Even so. "Anytime you want to try that again," he said with a very lop-sided grin. "Inside or outside..."

"Any time."  Paul got Nathan upright and held on until he thought the man looked stable.  "Wonder if there's any abandoned buildings in the vicinity," he said thoughtfully.  "That'd be a hell of a good game in a nice factory or a parking garage.  Maybe even with a few people."

"We'll have to pose the question to Scott," Nathan said, rubbing at his bandaged wrist and grinning a bit wryly. "I think the enclosed space hurt me as much as you in some ways. I have to watch myself when I'm inside buildings that need to remain un-demolished. Spillover," he explained at Paul's thoughtful look.

"We could hire ourselves out as a wrecking crew," Paul suggested, mostly joking.

"Been there, done that," Nathan said, only half-jokingly.

"We'll see what we can find.  Maybe some old government buildings."  Paul was serious about that.  "I could use a drink," he said, prodding his shoulder again.  Ouch.  He poked it more.  Still ouch.  "Or at least a few aspirin."

His head hurt, and was probably going to hurt even worse in about a half-hour, Nathan reflected, but he felt as close to actually calm as he'd been in days. Be honest, a couple of weeks... Amazing what a little productive exertion could do for you, and Paul was certainly one hell of a challenge.

"I'm sure we could find either a medicine cabinet or a liquor cabinet to raid," Nathan said with a grin. Somewhere well away from anything resembling parents.

"I'm going to go grab something to clear up my shoulder," Paul said.  "Why don't you come by my room after you're showered.  I'll leave the door open."  He gave Nathan a wave, right-handed, and left him at the door to the locker room.