Shinobi and Nate

[x-shinobi.livejournal.com]

Monday, before dinner, Shinobi and Nate descend upon the Danger Room to get some training in. Progress is made in finding things Shinobi needs to work on, in terms of maintaining his focus.



Nathan grinned wickedly at Shinobi as he led the way into the Danger Room. "You're got that 'What am I getting myself into?' face on," he said cheerfully. "This'll be fun. Really. You'll see."

"If you say it'll be fun, I trust you," Shinobi mused, turning to walk backwards into the room so he could better face Nate for conversation. "What are we doing today, old man?"

"Working on that little concentration problem of yours," Nathan said happily. "You know, so you can phase the next time I drop a warehouse on you."

Shinobi feigned shock, quickly covering his head with both arms. "What do you mean, next time? I'm helping you buy a shiny rock, show some appreciation!"

"Hey, just hedging my bets. You never know," Nathan said blithely, nodding as he saw the variety of objects the Room had provided for them stacked neatly in the corner. A full set of armed practice drones, too. Those would be interesting. "I've set the Room to emanate some subsonics," he said, beginning to levitate some of the items into the air. "Bursts of light, too. Between all that, me throwing shit at you, and knocking you around with my telekinesis, we'll have you concentrating real hard in no time."

Shinobi eyed the drones and now-floating items for a moment, drawing in a deep breath. "We can hope. Just turn it off if my ears start bleeding, huh? That really, really sucked."

"You don't see me wearing earplugs, do you? Trust me, I won't be letting it get that far." Nathan gave him a thoughtful look. "You do trust me, right?"

"Wouldn't be here if I didn't," Shinobi replied honestly, looking to Nathan with a slight grin. "I'll let you know if I start losing my grip.. I don't think my being knocked tangible again while you're throwing things would be very healthy, somehow."

"I'll know if you're tangible or not," Nathan said, letting his perceptions slide down several levels until Shinobi was a glittering blue form standing in front of him. "If you are, nothing will connect," he went on, taking a few careful steps back - his depth perception got a little funky when he did this.

"Good enough for me," Shinobi grinned. After a pause, he made the shift - not that anyone who couldn't see his molecular structure would be likely to notice. No change in posture, or expression, or anything. Just like a light switch. "Ready when you are, boss."

Nathan reached up telekinetically to the control booth, activating the subsonics and the light show he'd programmed. He started to levitate the weights around Shinobi in wild, elliptical orbits, and wrenched the drones into the air, activating their energy weapons at the same time.

"It's disgustingly easy to just focus on myself while we're in here," Shinobi grumbled, his expression wavering as the subsonics and lightshow kicked on. It took obvious effort for him not to simply close his eyes to avoid some of the distractions. "It doesn't feel as dangerous."

"Hard to simulate life or death situations," Nathan said and started to send the weights at him, warping their orbits. The subsonics weren't bothering him - they'd been trained specifically at Mistra to resist much higher levels of sonic assault than this. The lights, however, were, mostly because he could see the echo of their energy and it was a very odd sensation.

"That's probably a good thing," Shinobi nodded, making his own job more challenging - conversation was good, it gave him more to focus on, he needed to learn to multi-task better.. and, once he was comfortable with his balance there, his eyes picked out one of the orbiting weights to try and follow it. "My head's going to be pissed when we're done," he said after a moment, one hand rising towards his temple. Focus, focus, focus..

"If it gets too bad, let me know," Nathan said, letting the drones pepper Shinobi with their little energy blasts, as he bounced another few weights at him. "I don't want you passing out. Sarah and I had such a civilized conversation, after all. I'm hoping for more."

"I doubt she'd take much offense if you did," Shinobi mused, his voice and posture tightening as he grabbed a firmer mental grip to let the blasts pass harmlessly through. "I think she's a little pouty that I don't bleed unless I slip, so a good bout of unconsciousness is a fair compromise, I'd think." A brief pause, and he chanced a quick glance towards Nate. "What'd you two chat about?"

"She tried to jump me in the hall. I agreed to spar with her." A faint smile tugged at Nathan's lips as he sent all of the weights at Shinobi at once and kept the drones firing, as well.

There was a brief waver on his control as he choked back a laugh at the mental image that Nate's answer provided, but Shinobi was paying enough attention to twist to one side to give himself some extra time to regain his focus before the weights or blasts could hit. Close shave, but.. "Oh, she must have been giddy. She loves sparring."

"I told her if she used the bones, I got to use the TK," Nathan said frankly. "It should be interesting for her."

"Should be good for her," Shinobi corrected in an agreeable tone, eyes already moving to pick out a new weight to watch. "Between sparring with you and talking to Kylun, she might not even spend as much time in the basement. Crazy."

"Well, we'll see how it goes. She and I don't have a very good track record when it comes to getting along." Nathan's eyes narrowed and he very carefully grasped Shinobi, even in his intangible state, levitating him up off the ground.

"Neither of you are in medlab," Shinobi observed with a distracted grin. "I'd say you get along alri--whoa!" The sudden lack of a floor under his feet was enough to startle him tangible again, a startled series of blinks made down at the floor. "... you're far too good at multi-tasking."

Nathan immediately froze the weights in mid-air, shutting down the drones. Another flicker of telekinesis shut off the subsonics and the lights. "I should show you what I can do with coins sometime. You all right?"

Shinobi looked up, nodding and cracking a sheepish smile. "Only thing wounded is my pride. You just surprised me, I'm okay."

"Told you I wouldn't let anything connect," Nathan couldn't resist pointing out. "So it was just the surprise that snapped you back to tangible?" He shook his head in an odd sideways motion, until his vision cleared back to normal. He had seen Shinobi's molecules shift and reacted accordingly.

"It was one more thing to try and focus on that came out of nowhere," Shinobi nodded, running a hand back through his hair. "Guess we know one more thing to work on, huh?"

Nathan lowered him back to the ground, smiling. "You were doing well, though. Especially given the subsonics. They weren't anywhere near what Foley was throwing at you, but they would still have been messing with your concentration."

"They were," Shinobi chuckled, his smile turning wry. "I think I was trying to focus on too much at once. Is that good, or bad?"

"There are two schools of thought on that," Nathan said. "One says that you should try to find a way to simplify the situation, some sort of single option that will address all the variables. The other says that you should train your concentration to be equal to all the variable." He smiled again. "I tend to think that it's not an either/or. You need to be able to do both."

"This is going to take a while.." Shinobi drew in a deep breath, then let it out in an amused sigh. "Luckily, we've got time. You should be able to hammer all this into my skull eventually, you're stubborn."

"Your skull's not that thick," Nathan said with a laugh. "It won't take hammering. Just practice." He gave Shinobi another too-bright smile, levitating the weights back up into the air. "Ready to give it another go?"